


Like Treason

by oinops



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Flashbacks, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oinops/pseuds/oinops
Summary: She could spend entire days thinking about it, afterwards, and didn't quite know why. She wasn't even sure she wanted to: it felt like mockery, almost. Almost like a badly thought-out form of torture.Alternatively titled: Four times Yellow Diamond was lovestruck, and one time she had an existential crisis.





	Like Treason

**Author's Note:**

> So... Blue is Yellow's biggest weakness, uh?
> 
> Change Your Mind really sold me on this ship, so much I actually went and wrote the first fanfiction of my life (lmao).  
> Because of that, and since English isn't my first language, criticism is much appreciated!

Yellow stood, alone. The control room was silent and completely dark, save from the faint glowing and buzzing of the cockpit screens. The trip to Heta 9—her fifth and newest colony, yet to be completed—was going to be long, and likely uneventful. She had left the ship on autopilot a while back, thinking this would be a good time to read the latest reports from her generals, but that had proven rather unsuccessful: she kept spacing out and getting stuck, her mind unable to retain any of the information she read. About half an hour later, she realized that whatever had gotten into her wasn't going to leave anytime soon. Making that conclusion, she rose from her chair and walked towards one of the enormous windows. Planting her gaze on the infinite darkness behind it, she let out a feeble sigh.

Amid that infinite darkness were infinite, smaller glimmering lights: most of them she could name, and a great deal she had visited in person. As her eyes wandered over stars and planets, she tried to recognize each of them as if it were a game. Out in the distance, now a few light years behind the spacecraft and the rest of her fleet, Homeworld was still visible in its now dim glowing: it was a strange feeling, watching it from so far away, but one of contentment regardless. It really was beautiful, the sky—she mused.

She wasn't at all one to notice such things, usually. And who had the time to, anyway? Stargazing didn't have much use—if done for any other reason besides deciding on what other planet to hollow out next, that is. It felt like pointless indulging, with all those other things she was supposed to be doing. Things she was supposed to be doing _right now_ , in fact, if she hadn't gotten in that funk. It did happen, from time to time, and it always annoyed her to no end. She didn't like to think about it, and certainly didn't want to risk anyone knowing: her pensiveness was always quick to turn into irritation anyway, so she stifled it down each time, and gritted her teeth until it was gone again. It was what was expected of her, after all.

Her mind then—by its own volition, likely looking for the nearest distraction, or rather making unconscious connections—wandered to _her_.

She was so fond of watching the sky, and would have loved the view from up there. Always the more sentimental, the more attentive to beauty: the one who had every building and personal chamber covered in statues and fountains, who cared about the harmony in the curves of each column. The one who loved music, and softly sang to herself whenever she thought no one was there to hear. The diplomat Yellow had never been, the balance she never had: she would have liked to share that sight with her, now. Her presence might even have helped her snap out of that trance she had fallen into, she thought. But she was probably on the opposite side of the galaxy, by then.

She'd seen her no longer than a day prior.

—

_It was on one of Homeworld's docking bays, and she had left just before Yellow did. They hadn't talked—she wasn't even sure she'd been noticed—but that was to be expected. Their encounters most often played out like that, busy as they were: catching a glimpse of one another in the distance, and then immediately disappearing from each other's proximity for an indefinite amount of time. But again, what did time mean to a nigh-immortal? In an ideal universe, one that played by logic, not much at all._

_She was there, several feet away and about to board her personal ship, shrouded in her formal cloak. The colonization processes had really taken a toll on the both of them—on every gem in their courts, actually—as of lately. Yellow's breath caught in her throat for a moment, and her head dropped slightly as soon as she saw her disappear in the bubble. She always got a weird feeling, after this type of thing happened: a strange melancholy, some sort of longing, an almost imperceptible weight halfway between her chest and her stomach. She could spend entire days thinking about it, afterwards, and didn't quite know why. She wasn't even sure she wanted to: it felt like mockery, almost. Almost like a badly thought-out form of torture._

_The last time she'd seen her—unnoticed, in a very similar way—was a decade before._

—

_Between those quick stolen glances on distant harbors and behind tall palace columns, sometimes, they'd actually meet. Of course they did: after all, they had always been a working pair—carrying out operations at the same time, sitting face to face at every assembly—sharing ships and soldiers and court members, even._

_This time, she'd been personally requested on one of her colonies, one that was still in progress. It wasn't by any means unusual, as the process was never easy: issues with the local ecosystem, with the construction of buildings, with kindergarten production. There always were, after all, and nothing ever seemed to go according to plan: it could be daunting, sometimes. This once, the planet's organics had started to develop primitive forms of civilization, and she was probably about to ask her for an extra hand to wipe them out._

_Yellow remembered a time long before, when she was younger and quite foolish. A speck of hesitation—how it didn't sit quite right with her, the destruction of intelligent life. But then, "It's a matter of us or them," White had told her, "and I expect you to make the right choice, young one"._

_She always did, always had, unquestioning from that moment forward._

_Blue had asked her to meet on the main arena. The planet's flora was rather outstanding, with enormous trees casting oddly-shaped shadows all around: it wasn't going to be long, though, before they all wilted away. The local sun was about to set when Yellow arrived, all red and golden. She landed her ship and disembarked alone, waiting near Blue's palanquin to be heard, much like any other of her subjects. She had always been one to care for presentation and formalities, after all—way more than Yellow ever did, in truth._

_There, before they could actually speak, she caught a glimpse of her beneath the sheer curtains. She was veiled, and statuary: her hand softly moving forward and prompting a gem to speak, raising up in a request for silence, bending down in dismissal. From that distance her words were hard to make out, but Yellow could hear her voice all the same, easily reconstructing what she couldn't catch by memory and imagination: how it most often sounded—half-whisper and half-song—always calm, always composed, and terrifyingly so. She didn't ever need to raise it, for any subject who heard her would have been scared straight already. Yellow was sure of that, for she always felt it too: the faintest shivering up and down her spine, cold and burning at once. It was rather strange, and unbecoming of her, to be trembling like a common Peridot would in the same situation: yet another thing she didn't enjoy questioning too much, afraid of the answers she could give herself. She smothered it down, as always, and shoved it in the back of her head, hoping it would never resurface again._

—

_It always did._

_Sky-blue irises crossed golden, sometimes, in halls and courtrooms, and the sight would be burned in her mind for the rest of the day, constantly resurfacing between reports and attack orders that kept turning into unintelligible tripe. In an ideal universe, one that played by logic, such a thing would have had explanation. In an ideal universe, most likely, such a thing wouldn't have been happening in the first place._

_They ran into each other by chance, after months, in one of the palace's many hallways. The new day was about to begin, Homeworld's sky slowly turning its characteristic, star-speckled violet. They noticed each other from opposite sides of the room: Blue's mouth curved into a small smile, and she quickened her pace towards her._

_"Yellow! It's been a good while," she greeted, softly taking the other diamond's fingers in hers. The light touch, even through gloves, was searing._

_"Any news?" she asked, moving one of her hands to Yellow's shoulder, prompting the other to start walking with her. She looked tangibly radiant, and her hand felt just as warm there as it had seconds before—distracting, so much that forming complex sentences was proving rather difficult, now. The general was curt, then, making one of her usual snarky remarks on the incompetence of some Agates, and Blue giggled—silently, for a moment, covering her mouth and raising her eyes at her._

_The things she would have given, to behold that sight more often._

—

_She had changed her mind. Torture wasn't being away from her: that, at best, was a mild nuisance. Torture, she had discovered, was something else entirely._

_Torture was having her near._

_Pink had insisted on bringing the four of them together, in one of her usual fits about always being left behind. She could see where the little one came from: having nothing to do all day was probably rather boring. So boring—Yellow thought—it would have driven her insane, if she was in her place. Some planets must had aligned, she was convinced, because the young gem had actually managed to get them all in the same room together: even White was there, although keeping by herself as she always did—sitting on her throne, towering above them even then, never speaking but watching over them nonetheless, with those unreadable eyes of hers. She smiled faintly, sometimes, whenever Pink looked over to her, and that alone was rather incredible to see._

_The poofy-haired diamond was perched on one of Blue's knees, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was telling them one of her usual stories, emphasizing her tale with silly expressions and wild gestures, and Blue started laughing. Heartily—a clear sound, bubbling like those streams of freshwater one could only see on faraway colonies. Suddenly, Yellow was paralyzed._

_There they were again, those strange feelings, only amplified by a million. The longing, the heaviness twisting in her insides—most of all, the shivering: she felt like she was freezing, and like a supernova had appeared inside her chest at the same time. Words eluded her, as coherent thought did. She was positive her physical form could abandon her at any moment._

_Her fellow diamond should really have made more of an effort to control her emotional powers, she ended up thinking. "Blue, would you please..." she started reprimanding half-heartedly, only to stop dead in her tracks as soon as she raised her eyes. Blue was completely calm, and so was Pink, seemingly unaffected by whatever had happened. They were both staring at her rather confusedly, now._

_"It's... nothing, I'm sorry," she managed, hoping to not receive any questions. She thought of White, then, felt her gaze burning on her shoulder—wondered if she could use one of her mind tricks and read into her, discovering and revealing to everyone..._

_Whatever it was that had happened, this thing she didn't even understand. Something that very much felt like it should be hidden, regardless._

_She turned her head, but White was just absentmindedly gazing into the distance. Only then she turned her eyes at Yellow, noticing she was being stared at, and gave her the closest thing to a quizzical look she was capable of._

—

She had existed for eons, much longer than even some of those stars who dotted the darkness in front of her, and was born all-knowing. Perfectly developed, coming to life in a burst of light, sure of her purpose—but sometimes, whenever any of that happened, it all started faltering.

Sometimes she thought she had turned into a newborn organic—weak and confused, certain of nothing, nobody in sight to direct its pressing questions at. In an ideal universe, one that played by logic, one that she often enough fooled herself into believing in, she actually held all the answers. In an ideal universe, she really was the unbothered piece of heavy machinery she'd been created as, the one she had spent her entire existence trying to shape herself into.

Some other times, though, and ever so rarely, her thoughts were so loud and bothersome they rendered her unable to do anything else. And in those moments, even the idea of lingering on them long enough to start unraveling something felt like treason.

And what was the use of doing that, anyway? What the use of having any thought in the first place, any of those inappropriate and laughable _feelings_? Even that, she didn't much like to ponder on: deep down, she knew she couldn't give herself an answer—knew that there had probably never been one, that there could probably never be.

Some other, even rarer times, she thought of her again. Though she could tell her—her weird ponderings, the weirder pressing weight halfway between her chest and her stomach.

_You understand me, right, Blue?_

_Tell me you do._

_You're the only one that ever could._

But that, too, felt like treason—possibly more than anything else ever had.


End file.
